On the shoulders of the head keeper falls the responsibility of all
the mistakes that mar a day's sport. His position is unfortunate, for
though he may perfect every arrangement, the success of the day must
depend on good shooting and the perfect carrying out of orders. His
plans must be set in motion amid every kind of distraction--a general
in command on a battlefield is not more harassed by questions, plots,
and counter-plots than the commander of a shoot. Guns are no sooner
told where to go than they inquire the way--one is asking querulously
where he will find his cartridges, another is sure his position is
hopeless, while the beaters require constant attention, for if they
are left alone to move on to the next beat they will lose themselves
as a matter of course. In partridge-driving the keeper's nerves are
stretched to breaking-point. Half a drive is finished, and not a bird
has shown itself; the suspense grows almost unendurable before the
swirling clouds of birds at last suddenly rise, and go on beautifully
in twos and tens and twenties--in a stream that no man can count.
The great art is to give even shooting through the day, and to
distribute sport evenly among the guns, without favouritism--unless,
indeed, orders are that the cream of the sport must pass the way of
an important personage. If a keeper, for reasons of his own, should
wish the bulk of the game to go to one quarter, he can manage this
by retarding one end of the line of beaters, or by ordering certain
beaters to tap with their staves more vigorously than the others--and
by this stratagem his partiality is hidden completely from the
sportsmen.
* * * * *